Australian culture and etiquette, for people who did not grow up here

Australians tend to be culturally suspicious of overt hierarchy. Practically, this shows up as first-name address at every level of an organisation, front-seat riding in taxis, tradespeople and executives speaking to each other as equals, and a broad social discomfort with anyone who signals status too openly.

The flip side is real: what sociologists call the tall poppy syndrome — a tendency to cut down conspicuous success. Australians are generally more comfortable with achievement that is understated. Listing your credentials unprompted lands badly in a way it would not in the United States.

This does not mean hierarchy is absent. Australian workplaces have exactly as much power imbalance as anywhere else; the difference is that it is expressed indirectly. A newcomer who takes the informality at face value and assumes there are no hierarchies can misread a workplace badly.

Tipping is not expected anywhere in Australia. Hospitality workers are paid an award wage with penalty rates for evenings, weekends and public holidays, so nobody's income depends on gratuities. Tipping happens for exceptional service, and rounding up a taxi fare is common, but there is no social penalty for not doing it and staff will not treat you differently.

Bills are usually split. Among friends this is often exactly even regardless of what each person ordered, and suggesting an itemised split can read as slightly graceless. In pubs, the convention is 'shouting': one person buys a round for the group, and the obligation to reciprocate is taken seriously. Leaving before your round is a genuine social offence.

Discussion of salaries is more open than in Britain and less open than in the United States. Discussion of house prices, on the other hand, is a national pastime with no apparent limits.

Australian humour is dry, understated and heavily reliant on irony. Self-deprecation is the default register; talking yourself up is not. Sarcasm is delivered deadpan, which regularly catches out people used to more signalled humour.

Teasing — 'taking the piss' — is usually a marker of acceptance rather than hostility. Being mocked by a colleague is more often a sign that you have been included than a sign of a problem. Reacting badly to it can be more socially costly than the teasing itself. The line, when it exists, is that the teasing should be about something incidental rather than something a person cannot change.

Swearing is more socially acceptable in casual Australian contexts than in most English-speaking countries, and 'bloody' barely registers as profanity. This has clear limits: professional settings, formal settings and dealings with strangers still call for the ordinary register.

'Bring a plate' means bring food to share, not an empty plate. 'BYO' means bring your own alcohol, and applies both to homes and to unlicensed restaurants — some of which charge corkage.

Arriving exactly on time for a casual social invitation is slightly unusual; ten to twenty minutes late is normal and often expected. For work, appointments, medical bookings and anything ticketed, punctuality is expected to the minute.

A barbecue is a genuine social institution rather than a novelty, and the norms are: bring drinks, bring something to share if asked, offer to help, and do not touch the barbecue unless invited. Removing shoes indoors is not standard practice in most Australian homes, unlike in New Zealand or much of Asia — but follow whatever the household does.

Sport is a lingua franca. Which code dominates depends entirely on geography: Australian rules football in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania; rugby league in New South Wales and Queensland; cricket everywhere in summer; and soccer growing across all of it. Knowing nothing about any of them is fine; pretending to know is not advisable.

The beach comes with genuine safety rules that are not optional. Swim between the red and yellow flags where lifesavers patrol; the flags mark the safest area and a patrolled beach is dramatically safer than an unpatrolled one. Rip currents are the leading cause of drowning deaths, and the correct response to being caught in one is to stay calm, float, and signal for help rather than swim against it.

Sun protection is treated as a public health matter rather than a vanity one. Australia has among the highest skin cancer rates in the world, and the ultraviolet index in summer routinely reaches levels where unprotected skin burns within minutes. Sunscreen, a hat and shade are normal adult behaviour, not fussiness.

Racial and ethnic slurs are socially unacceptable and, in specified circumstances, unlawful under federal and state anti-discrimination law.

Making light of Aboriginal dispossession, or treating Aboriginal culture as a costume or a novelty, lands very badly across most of Australian society. So does dismissing Acknowledgements of Country as performative in a professional setting, whatever your private view.

Queue-jumping, not shouting your round, talking loudly on public transport and boasting are the reliable minor offences. None of them will be raised with you directly, which is precisely why they are worth knowing about.